I think, as a president, you have to want respect. You can't look for love from the American people. You have to just do what you think is right. Some people will hate you, but others, in the long run, will respect you for what you've done.

Where's the progress that we're going to see in Afghanistan? You have to keep public support both on the economy and the war or these things will really become troubling.

Sometimes people will find things that are wrong. Sometimes they will even find an approach that you took wrong. If you think you took the right approach, then you just absorb the criticism, but you don't change your mind.

He (William Howard Taft) had little patience with the unconscious arrogance of conscious wealth and financial success.

As a historian, what I trust is my ability to take a mass of information and tell a story shaped around it.

They all start competing against Lincoln as the greatest president. And the [library] building becomes the symbol, the memorial to that dream.

Whatever it is that you do, if you have that passion and desire for it, that's the most important thing.